Netaji couldn’t have lived as hermit: Family member

Seeking to dispel the theory that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose lived as a hermit till 1985, a family member on Monday asserted that the nationalist leader could not have chosen renunciation over his motherland.

At the launch of her book, Bose's grand niece Madhuri Bose quoted one of Netaji's earliest writing to buttress her claims.

“Netaji in his writing ‘Pebbles on the Seashore’ had said: ‘Embracing Sanyasa when your country needs you is only a refined form of betrayal’. So a man who had such a belief cannot have lived a life of a monk as has been claimed for long,” said Madhuri. Her book "The Bose Brothers and Indian Independence: An Insider's Account" was released by West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi at Raj Bhavan here.

"What I know of the man, I do not believe he lived as the Gumnami Baba. A man who always believed in serving the nation, a man whose every word reflected his determination to serve the motherland, would not to be in hiding or isolation," she added. Following his disappearance after an alleged plane crash in Taiwan in 1945, there have been many conspiracy theories surrounding Netaji, including one that he came back to India and lived as Gumnami Baba alias Bhagwanji in Faizabad and Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh for 30 years.

Several researchers including Anuj Dhar, who has written several books on Netaji, endorse the Gumnami Baba theory.

Justice Manoj Mukherjee, who headed the Mukherjee Commission of Inquiry into Netaji's disappearance, also subscribed to the view in a comment that was captured on camera. On the occasion, Tripathi as well as former Supreme Court judge A.K. Ganguly gave rave reviews of the book, asserting it will bring out many unknown facets about Netaji and his relationship with his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose.